Yes, the vast majority of academics in our country are on the left of the political spectrum, and they were, and still are, against Brexit. Yet, there are a few academics who are of a conservative persuasion, and the party must tap into this pool of talent.
The Ankara summit will be less about grand declarations than about credibility. NATO has already set an ambitious direction; the challenge now is delivery. For the UK, the stakes are particularly high
Burnham, like his predecessor, has pledged a focus on growth. But growth won’t necessarily come from shifting decision-making power around, as beneficial as that might be in other ways.
She was a fictional character, but Margo Leadbetter from The Good Life represented middle class women who were staunch Conservatives. The problem for the party is that there are very few Margos left.
If Mr Burnham really wants to go for growth he will need lower taxes, cheaper energy, a roll back of net zero self harm, and more incentive for people to get a job and set up businesses. His wannabe advisers want more spending, more borrowing, more benefits, more socialism. That did not work in the 1970s and will not work now.
Conservatives should not abandon their belief in free markets because of Thames Water. But we should remember a lesson that even Adam Smith would have recognised: capitalism requires competition, and where competition is impossible, accountability becomes even more important.
Badenoch has gone out of her way to reject any deal with Reform. Her exact words on the possibility are “no, no, no, no, no, no, no”. This really doesn’t look like a mere delaying tactic. Indeed, I’d suggest it’s an integral part of a survival plan for an early general election.
His downfall exposes something deeper about the political culture that elevated him, trusted him, and made him so central to the movement he led. It lies in what his case reveals about the habits, assumptions, and weaknesses of party politics more widely.
Why should the silent majority put up with individuals inflicting their loud opinions on us at important moments in our history? It’s time we got out of the ECHR so we can silence these fanatics.
The victory is a sign that if the Conservatives have the intellectual strength to move on from the failures of 2010-2024, they can survive and even thrive.
Britain First, Yes. Britain Isolated, No. It was the first global nation, even before the age of globalisation. Through language, trade and travel, to say nothing of military and other commitments, we remain a global nation now.
Regardless of the churn at the top, the fundamentals remain the same. Labour will not secure our borders, they will not cut our ballooning welfare bill, and they will not do what’s necessary to keep our country safe. They are simply not dispositionally or ideologically capable of making the trade-offs that we need to make in order to fix any of these problems.
Right now the big question is how to tackle the poor performance of the British economy and the reasons behind it. Not all are Brexit related, but it’s important to address those that are. We aren’t going back in, but we should still investigate, for our own good, the Brexit effect.
Politics is rarely as straightforward as the polling makes out. Elections are still fought constituency by constituency, ward by ward and doorstep by doorstep. Aberdeen South and Swindon are reminders that electoral resilience matters, that local campaigning still counts and that recovery is possible long before the commentators notice it.